up to?

welllllll..........I have been so happy busy these past few weeks. I have printed out copies of my Ferlin and His Paper Hat book to send on their way to the publishers for consideration. I have scanned in all of my finished pastels of Ferlin, which I had been putting off for a very very very (yes that many very's) long time. And.........my husband and I opened up our apartment for the fall variety of the Saint Paul Art Crawl just two weekends ago.

For my book I made five copies, four to be sent out and one for myself to have for shows and such. I printed it out at the local staples and cut it all down at home with our paper cutter of xacto brand. And I put everything together with small little zip ties and clear sheet protectors, cut down to my page size.
 Before sending it on it's way each submission needs a particularly special letter to the editor as well as copies of my page spread done in pastel, (as I intended the book to be finished.) I am putting the finishing touches on those letters and will take a happy picture when I do my send off.

In my other news the Saint Paul Art Crawl was super! I always love how our space is transformed in a matter of exiting and fast paced hours. The week before it I was forever visiting goodwill or michael's to buy up frames and various other necessities for the show. We had a wonderful weekend and I even donned my apron to make some gnome, bear, and squirrel cookies. Magnets as always were quite popular and many people admired my Ferlin book, wishing me good luck on it. In the end our furniture was all moved and moved back again within four days.

So that is what I have been up to for the most part and making room for new things to come my way.

Here are all five of my sweet little Ferlin books, bound and ready for submission.

Three gnome cookies. They were Pillsbury sugar cookies with added mint extract and turquoise food coloring. Decorated with black sparkly gel icing! Yummmm!

This is part of our living room transformed for the art crawl. You can see some of our prints hanging on the grid in the back and my Ferlin pastels on the wall.

This is the other half of our room. Behind the partition is where our studio is located. By the window is Joe's painting, his comics are displayed along with my paintings.

More cookies! On the very last day I made pink squirrels and bears with white frosting.

The shape of wings to come...they're done!

A few weeks ago I finished the wings just in time to send them off to be worn, to what I am sure was a fabulous Halloween party. They turned out exactly as I hoped they would, full of iridescent shimmery-ness. I took lots of pictures with my phone during the whole process in order to show it here and also be able to remember for myself how I made them. So where did I leave off......well I had modge podged some fabric, cut it out into a wing shape, and sewed on some wire.

From that point I cut out two more little shapes in the modge podged thin canvas and added more wire for reinforcement. After everything was good and glued down with modge podge I drew up some shapes to cut out of the wings. I drew on tracing paper (my favorite) and transferred the image to the wings by going over it with a pencil. Then I tried to cut the shapes out with a scissor, which didn't work, but luckily an xacto knife worked very well. After it was cut I got to paint!yay! I chose yellow with a mix of iridescent paint for the back and pink and yellow for the front of the wings. After they were dry I glued shimmery see threw fabric to the back so that it showed threw all of the shapes I had cut out. I made sure to top everything off with plenty more iridescent paint and gloss varnish medium as a final protective coat. I was so pleased with the end result and I know my sister felt so special wearing them. She fit rite in with the rest of the fairies!

This is a small bit of thin canvas I sewed a piece of bent wire to. I adds more stability and helps them bend at the right place.

Here is the above piece as it is glued to the wing.

Both supports are glued on with modge podge and I'm ready to draw some designs to be cut out.

I sketched some designs on tracing paper and then flipped the paper over and traced so that the graphite would transfer onto the canvas. You can see the way it transferred on the right.

Here is where I started to cut out some shapes.

One whole side of the wing is cut out.

Getting ready to paint the front of the wings. I tried out my colors on a scrap of canvas to see how my blending would go.

One side of the wing painted, although I did go in again to add some more highlights.

The back of the wings got painted yellow and sheer iridescent fabric was glued on.

The front of the wings as they are finished, with a coat if iridescent paint and gloss varnish medium. The sheer fabric glued on the back is yet to be cut.

And finally they are done and in place. Very pretty!

The wings get their close up!

You can notice the holes that I made for decoration are actually very functional if you want to hang up the wings or tie them on instead.

Close up of the back of the wings were they bend.

I just had to try the on myself. Lovely.